


Just Stay

by CateBeLate



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, F/M, it hurts us, sad writing, this made me sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21686413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CateBeLate/pseuds/CateBeLate
Summary: He thought she remembered. He really thought she did.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 16





	Just Stay

The night had been full of pepperoni pizza, cold beer, and inevitable bickering over what the right answers were for a rerun of ‘Jeopardy!’. The rarity of an occurrence led both parties to believe this was something born of dreams. It couldn’t be real, for they were an impossible pair with improbable circumstances.

Once in a blue moon, the beliefs of a life long ago forgotten were skirted on, familiarities forcing actions and reactions. Too often, they were dipped in honey, the gasps and hymns of worshiped names lining each sensitive movement.

He could never forget where to touch her.

She relearned where to kiss him.

And in the aftermath of ripped clothing and lamps knocked over, tousled sheets and tender touches, they were left in the comfortable company of one another. For the sake of the moment, Natalia had chosen a shirt of his while James slipped on sweatpants.

It was, in his mind, almost perfect.

But ‘perfect’ was never meant for them. In the back of his mind, there was a lingering voice seeding doubt that this would stretch any further than the early morning hours. James knew there’d be nothing left but her perfume and the memories of her silhouette in the dim street light filtering through the bedroom windows.

They stayed on that couch though, well past midnight to chuckle at the ridiculousness of infomercials and comment on 90s reruns. This felt nostalgic to him, and he only hoped it tickled the latent memories lost long ago for her.

He hoped.

She got up off the couch, wiping her hands on his shirt as she did and had made her way to the bedroom. Of course, he followed, thinking either sleep or another crash course in remembrance. Instead, he was greeted with the fiery Soviet slipping her clothes back on.

“Going somewhere?” Immediately, the defected soldier regretted having asked, wanting to live in his own ignorance that she would stay for the night. Stay with him.

Just stay.

“Home,” she simply replied, buttoning her jeans before looking over at him. Something was there, swimming in the emerald sea of her eyes, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Despite the indifference painting his angular features, he felt just how far his heart sank in his chest.

“You could always stay, you know,” he reasoned, moving to lean against the threshold. “The world can survive through the night. I’d bet my good arm on it.”

A hum was really all he got in the way of acknowledgement of his offer, as if this was a common occurrence. But it wasn’t. And he’s left reeling through memories that only he holds of ‘I love you’ and ‘Moya Zvedza’ and the way she’d looked at him.

Memories of a chapter closed and haunted by the lack of recognition. This was a damning sense of torture that he welcomed with open arms. Over and over, he’d welcome her back with the same fervor knowing damn well what heartache awaited him on the other side of her wake.

Natalia - never Natasha - slipped past him, her perfume tickling flashbacks of just hours prior, wanting already to live in those thoughts and nowhere else. James turned to watch her, entranced by the bounce through crimson tendrils he ached to run his fingers through, just one more time.

“James,” she said, stopping at the front door, hand on the doorknob. In just his name alone, she could ensnare his full attention. The world could be burning around him, and he’d still only see her. She turned to look at him, sadness seeping among gold flecks in those eyes he saw in his dreams. “You can’t just turn back time, you know?”

In those syllables, his heart shattered along the cracks each one of her kisses had filled. Despite wanting to watch her disappear beyond that door, wanting to look away to tumble back into self-pity, he kept a keen gaze on her.

The world burned to cinder as the door closed behind her, words unsaid left behind his teeth to sustain him until the next blue moon.


End file.
